By the time the Pogues got to 43 Caro Lane, Zeasy's Real Estate office, the cop cars had already closed in and were ready to intercept the oncoming mob, keeping them far away from the building JJ was supposedly wrecking havoc in.
"All right, JJ! This is what I was talking about, son! You've gone too far, and we've got a serious situation!" Shoupe shouted into the megaphone. "I told you this shit would happen, and here we are!"
In the distance the sound of firecrackers rang out. The air surrounding the downtown area stretching all the way to the Zeasy building was tinged orange from both the flames and the colourful smoke grenades.
"I need you to put down any and all weapons you may have, or you will get shot! And I don't want that!" Shoupe continued.
Grace's heart plummeted into her stomach. Flashes of blood stuck between the wood grain of their home flashed through her eyes. Images of JJ's unconscious body, seeping crimson from his forehead and sinking into the ocean, tormented her. The scraps of metal and shards of plastic laid out on the road in the dead of night came rushing back.
"So just come on out with your hands up! JJ, listen up, son-"
Before Shoupe could continue, the blonde's voice came echoing out of the smashed windows of the building. "No, you listen up, Shoupe! I'm not just gonna come out there so you can take what's ours and let them win again! It was ours, fair and square! So I have a right to fight for what's mine!"
Grace's already dropped heart sunk to her toes. She knew JJ like the back of her hand, but even if she didn't, even if he was an absolute stranger, it was abundantly clear how stubborn he was being. This was who he was; this was what made him great. He would never and had never backed down from a fight, especially if it was something he felt this passionately about.
She also knew the truth. She knew that logically, something had to budge, and in all likelihood it would be a cop's pointer finger over a trigger.
An unstoppable force was about to meet an immovable object.
Gathering all of her vigour, Grace shouted. "JJ! Please, just do what they say!"
"No!" he snapped immediately.
He was in deep; he knew it, the Pogues knew it, the rioters knew it, and the cops definitely knew it. If he backed down, he'd end up in jail like Luke had. If he backed down, the Pogues wouldn't rest until he got out, which meant bail and money they didn't have.
Even though the image of terror on Grace's face was vivid and painful, he wasn't going to back down. Even though he often spent his nights soothing his wife after she had woken up shaken from a nightmare of the people she loved dying, he wasn't going to back down.
The adrenaline was coursing through his blood like morphine.
Guns were trained on his skull, triggers practically begging to be squeezed.
He'd never felt more alive.
Death was a foreign concept; it was a word in an ancient tongue even the smartest of historians couldn't decode. He was standing on the edge, and damn, did it feel right.
"I'm done kissing the feet of people who've taken from me my entire life!"
Grace spun around to John B, looking up at him with fear in her eyes. "He's not going to listen. We need to do something." Her words came out in one fell swoop, as if she were resurfacing from the depths and the pleading was her lung's gasping intakes of oxygen. This was potent desperation.
"Shoupe, he broke a window!" John B protested.
"Shoupe, you cannot shoot him!" Kie added.
"Y'all might have given up, but I'm not done fighting!" came JJ's voice.
YOU ARE READING
𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 - JJ Maybank
FanfictionGrace Cameron was a Pogue. Always has been. Sure her dad and half-siblings were the Kookiest a Kook could get but her mom had grown up on the Cut so she did too. Her friend group vowed to have a good time all the time but when a boat goes down in th...
